Put them away, Posh!

Victoria Beckham complained during this week's television spectacular on her life that during an interview with Jerry Springer he "kept trying to look down my top". Yet barely a day seems to pass without her finest assets being exposed - not just on stage or a night on the town, but at any opportunity, be it a children's hospital, a book signing, a football match or, yesterday, at an awards ceremony. Perhaps the girl doth protest too much. As Shane Watson suggests, we might not be so interested if she didn't invite our attention...

Victoria Beckham was pictured today wearing a white jacket, accessorised only with a braless cleavage and spangly necklace. We now associate her with the gravity-defying, up-there-on-show neckline. Some might say that when they think of Posh Spice's pop career, the breasts are the high point.

It wasn't always this way. As this week's fly-on-the-wall TV documentary Being Victoria Beckham reminded us, Posh was once defined by her dark bob, short hemlines and that pointing finger.

Indeed, her husband David admitted, during the ITV1 programme, that it was how she looked in the Spice Girls' video for Say You'll Be There, specifically her Barbarella hairdo, that won his heart. The first thing about her that struck him was "the hair and the face," he said, "and then I saw the body and that was it".

Beckham may not be a breast man, after all, but the point is that back then Victoria wasn't a breast woman, or not especially. She was more of a legs and pout girl (remember her line in Spice World: "Shall I wear the little

Gucci dress, the little Gucci dress or the little Gucci dress?') and a bit too Posh to get her top out. That role fell to Geri in her Wonderwoman outfits and that crazy animal Scary Spice.

But then Posh got fashion. Not only fashion as in labels, but fashion the full-blown religion. Out went the floppy bob, the sexy, strong-legged figure and in came the two sizes smaller Posh we saw on Maria Grachvogel's catwalk during the spring 2000 collections.

With her shorter, tawny hairstyle, George Hamilton tan and hollow cheeks she looked more Nancy Reagan than Kate Moss. But the real proof that Posh - gorgeous Spice Girl Posh - had been stolen by the fashion body-snatchers were those breasts: cork-nippled artillery guns straining against her green knitted top and perching like grapefruit halves on the top of her dress.

We can't pinpoint the day Posh became Perfect Breasts Posh, although obviously there is someone out there wearing a white coat who can, but we all remember that Grachvogel show.

"I haven't had a boob job," she said in October 2000, a month after she didn't have it, and on Being Victoria Beckham she tried the tricks of the trade tack: "Every woman knows what you can do with a bit of tape and a bustier."

No one's suggesting we'd rather she turned up with a crepey old cleavage. It's just that, when she let nature and the rigours of Spicedom be her guide, she was way more lovely.